KUALA LUMPUR: As of the second quarter of this year, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has recorded 8.15 million recycled mobile numbers out of the total 49.4 million active users, says Fahmi Fadzil.
The Communications and Digital Minister said the 8.15 million figure involved phone numbers that had gone through a "cooling off period" of six months before they were allowed to be reused by new users.
He said that the cooling-off period method was established to prevent any untoward problems such as scams and fraud that might affect the phone number’s previous owner, especially involving banking services.
Fahmi then said that like other natural resources such as petroleum and gold, phone numbers are also a resource that must be managed well.
"The practice of reusing old numbers and cooling off period are also being done in other countries such as in the United States the period is 45 days, Australia (six months) and Singapore (90 days),” he said.
"Although steps to prevent the problem and to reduce the risks of it happening are being carried out, the MCMC can’t stop banks or any services from storing their customers’ personal data for a long time," he added when speaking in the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday (Oct 24).
Fahmi said this in response to Rodziah Ismail (PH-Ampang) who asked if the ministry was planning on introducing a policy to permanently deactivate recycled phone numbers to ensure the safety of both prepaid and postpaid users.
Rodziah said users who were given recycled numbers often encountered breach of privacy issues due to the retention of the previous users' details and questioned if the ministry planned on extending the six months cooling off period.
Fahmi said, although there were complaints regarding the issue, the MCMC had only received 80 complaints regarding recycled mobile numbers as of 2021.
"That is 0.00016% out of the total mobile numbers subscriptions in Malaysia, which is a small number."
According to him, those most affected by issues related to recycled numbers are prepaid users which make up 34.98 million users in the country while the remaining 14.45 million consist of postpaid users.
"To overcome this, new users must be smart in blocking numbers using the existing function in mobile phones.
"Users must also regularly update their phone numbers with their banking service provider to ensure their banking account’s security," Fahmi added.
To a question by Roslan Hashim (PN-Kulim Bandar Baharu) who asked if there was an effort to extend the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) operating time to 24 hours, Fahmi said the matter was currently being reviewed.
"The NSRC (operating time) is from 8am to 8pm but as announced by the Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) on Oct 13 (during tabling of Budget 2024), it (NSRC) has received an injection of funds and therefore, NSRC is looking into improving its access to the public."
At the same time, Fahmi also urged phone users who were facing similar problems to also reach out to their respective mobile network operators aside from MCMC.
